Many of you know that I will be speaking at The Creative Connection Event this September in Minnesota. I'm very excited to a part of the event this year and I am really looking forward to Thursday's opening day because that is the day for BlogHer seminars. I will be learning all kinds of great things about Blogging and Search Engine Optimization, Community Building etc....

I was also very excited to learn that The Creative Connection Event is having a fabulous Giveaway going on right now!! Two free passes to the event plus Hotel!!! That is over $1000.00 worth of TCC goodness!!! Last year was such a fabulous experience for me and I know many of you would love to go, so here is your chance!! Hop on over there and check it out!!!!

It's somebody's birthday around here and we're celebrating by giving away 2 passes for you and a girlfriend. We'll even pick up the hotel. Imagine getting away for The CREATIVE CONNECTION with just you and your best friend! This is big!

The Nitty Gritty
RULES OF ENTRY:
To enter you must do the following:


Leave a comment on THE CREATIVE CONNECTION BLOG that includes the following information: Why you want to attend BlogHer Handmade and The Creative Connection Event and who you would pick to take with you and why.

Additional entries:

Tweet the following "Win a full pass and hotel for you and a friend to BlogHer Handmade and The Creative Connection Event!" http://ht.ly/5Ped4 #tccevent11.
*Blog about this giveaway and tell your readers why you would love to attend BlogHer Handmade and The Creative Connection Event- 5 additional entries-leave the link on each comment
Have THE CREATIVE CONNECTION EVENT button or link on the sidebar of your blog (2 Entries–leave a link to your page on each comment)
"Like" us on Facebook-1 Entry (if you previously shared a post on FB, this is your entry. We must follow their rules of promotion-Thank you)
*Remember, you may have up to 10 entries, but you MUST POST SEPARATELY for each additional entry. This contest ends at 11:59 on Thursday, August 4th!  Winner announced Friday, August 5th! Good luck~

Let's try this again!!! ...Why I love Craig's List.

Ever since I entered Blogland, I have (like so many of you) wanted a vintage dress form. I searched and searched until I realized I would never own one of the truly beautiful vintage forms because, well... they were just too expensive. I had no luck finding one that even came close to something I could afford.  As I hopped down the list of beautiful studios for the Where Bloggers Create party, I saw many lovely mannequins and once again my desire to find (or make) one was renewed. I've been searching Craig's List for the past week hoping that I would find something that I could modify with decoupage etc. When I saw the listing for this one last night... I immediately sent an email crossing my fingers that I was the first.  I heard from the owner this morning and drove an hour out to Litchfield Park where my girl was waiting for me! No, she isn't very old, but she has a fabric cover and a nice base and she was only $50.00! I am a happy camper!!! I'm already running ideas over in my head for what I want to do to her. I think the neck needs a finial, and nice coat of white paint as  well as the base. Now, do I try to make a wire skirt or do I look for a fluffy vintage petticoat to cover her naked lower half?? Maybe I just leave her as-is!! All I know is... I love Craig's List!!

BTW... In case any of you were wondering... I had some technical issues yesterday. My blog wouldn't load properly. It took FOREVER to finally load! I didn't notice it until after I did the post, so I tried removing the post to see if it was the culprit. It was not. :(  I then tried removing some of the lists of party attendees. (They can all be found on the Where Bloggers Create blog)

Finally I dumped my whole template and started all over. That helped me discover the problem.

There was something that had corrupted my Feedjit and on-line user counter. So, if any of you are experiencing the same problems... remove those first and see what happens.  :)

WBC Party Day for 2011!!!

 

Welcome to the Where Bloggers Create party for 2011!! Thank you all so much for coming. To all the participants... You rock! You made it so much easier for me to link everyone up this year. Thank you, Thank you!! Thank you! Your kind words of thanks for hosting the event are making all the work SOOO worth it! I can’t wait to come and visit you all. Every single one of you inspire me in one way or another! It may take me 6 weeks or so to visit you all, but I’ll get there eventually!! LOL!!

Well, let’s start the tour shall we?? Only a few things have changed since last year, but many of you are new to the event so what the heck... we’ll just show it all again!

This is the view when you first walk into the room. It is also where you will see the first change from last year. When I first set up the room, I really designed it for one. Then as more and more friends came over to play I realized there really wasn’t enough space. But for now, this is what I have so I rearranged some things and made some more room.

There used to be just purely decorative items on this dresser, and well... that just didn’t work anymore. So now it holds all my little rhinestone treasures. I like having them out to see. I have kind of an out of site out of mind mentality when it comes to my stuff, so seeing what I have keeps me inspired. Besides, I still think it's pretty decorative don't you??

Much of the jewelry pieces that I have came from last Spring’s trip to Round Top. Then, when I got home my mom said “Hey, do you think you might want this old jewelry I have??” “What??” I said  “Of course I do!!!!!”  (Thanks Mom)

The apothecary jars that held all my ribbon and trim were overflowing and looked messy all the time.

 

I put hooks on the wall and hung the prettiest ribbons from them.  These are the blacks and whites...

and these are the creams and browns.

I used to have a fun sculpture of empty picture frames here. It took up to much valuable space. It was a perfect place to hang the lace and ribbons. Of course I just couldn’t help myself. I had to add some frames back into the space!

I was inspired by an awesome piece of framed art I saw when I went to Round Top. I used 3 different frames. The largest one has burlap in it. I used the words “Follow Your Bliss" (a section of one of my favorite quotes of all time.)  I went through my scrabble letters and found I had everything I needed except the Y!! So I found a blank tile and wrote the letter on there myself!

(A heart for “Valentine”)

My friend Charlene from My Heart’s Ease started collecting vintage cut glass for her German glass glitter. I loved the idea!! But with no great cut glass pieces to be found, I settled for glass jars with stoppers from Hobby Lobby. (Thanks Charlene!)

The bookcase was just one of those old laminate bookcases. I painted it white and added a lace edge to the shelves. It holds my growing collection of bottles destined to be covered in lace, burlap and wax!

Mmmm.... Buttons.....

I can’t be without my TV while in the studio. I love  to watch TNT and USA, with healthy doses of Discovery Channel and the occasional chick flick thrown in!!  If I’m not watching TV, I’m listening to my ipod. Some of the artists you’ll hear on it...Toby Lightman, Colbie Cailat, KT Tunstall, Sara Bareilles, Adele, Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, Rob Thomas and Maroon 5 (Just to name a few)  :)

I liked the "snowflakes" I made for Christmas last year so much, I decided to call them "stars" and put them in my studio!! LOL!!

The last change I made was to remove the dog bed from under the window, (sorry puppies) and replace it with 2 cubes that are designed to hold scrapbook paper. I used to have an addiction to paper. Now my addiction has moved on to digital paper, but I still love my real papers and I needed a place to store them. The cubes from JoAnne and Michaels are plain white, and while that was fine for a while, I wanted a little more detail. I decoupaged the pair with old book pages. Sometimes Decoupage is soo much easier than paint!!!

Well, that’s the tour of my little studio! I hope you enjoyed it.

Just as last year, Jo Packham and Where Women Create are going to be offering some wonderful prizes. (Aren't they just the best???)This year I think I'm going to let the winners pick which prizes they would like. There are magazine subscriptions, and books or a bracelet... All really terrific!! I'll choose 3 lucky winners (totally randomly) and you can let me know what prizes you would like to receive.

I will also be putting together a slide show of some of my favorite studio's to show at The Creative Connection Event in September!

Thank you again everyone! It's all of you who make this such a fun and inspiring event!! See you soon!

A fancy new laptop cover for my spiffy new laptop!

I had such a great weekend!  My friend Sandie (she has a brand new blog by the way...) and I hung out at her house while her husband and daughter were out of town! It was a wonderful retreat with crafting, chick flicks and pizza for 24 hours!!

I had really wanted to make a carrying case for my new laptop, so I gathered all my goodies and away I went.

The bottom half  was a piece of matlesse' that I had in my stash. I quilted the top half and the flap using a diamond pattern. I also quilted the strap by layering it with quilt batting and sewing channels down the strap. I added D rings on the sides of the cover to attach the handle when I need to.

The inside,  has Velco to secure the flap. I love how the cover has little bits of purple in the flowers to compliment the laptop color.

I made a little pouch to tie on to one of the D-rings. It holds my ear plugs for when I need them.

But my favorite part, was making the embellishment. I made it so it Velro's on and can removed when the cover needs to be washed. (It is mostly white after all.) I used Tim Holts grungeboard for the wings, the tag and the back of the piece. The wings are covered with Tim Holtz's crackle paint in white and then antiqued. The crown has gold and silver glitter mixed together. For my name tag I printed my name on some fabric paper and died the edges with coffee. Then I covered the grungboard tag with a scrap of fabric and used rhinestone brad fasteners to attach the wings.

I'm really happy with the the way it came out. I can't wait to travel with it to Minnesota for The Creative Connection Event in September!!

See you all on Friday for the Where Bloggers Create party!!!

Tips before the big Event!

Click here to visit my Party Post!!!

I can't believe the Where Bloggers Create party for 2011 is less than two weeks away!!!

Are you ready????

As I have been linking up all the wonderful blogs participating in this years party I've been noticing a few little details that I think I might be able to help with, to make your blogs even more fabulous than they are. After all, we want to put on our very best party dress right??

So here are a few tips for you to play around with if you want to....

If the blue navigation bar at the top of your blog doesn't match your "decor" you can change it by going up to DESIGN. At the very top of your layout right above HEADER you will see the box for the NAVBAR. Click on edit and change the color to Transparent light (for a light colored blog) or Transparent Dark (for a dark colored blog). Click save and presto! No more blue Navbar.

The other thing I saw a lot of was the double lines around some of the headers. If the header doesn't fit exactly within the lines it distract from the fabulousness of your blog! You can remove these very easily. Just go up to DESIGN and then click on edit HTML. Find the code that looks like this...

#header-wrapper {
  width:880px;
  margin:0 auto 10px;
  border:0px solid $bordercolor;
  }
#header-inner {
  background-position: center;
  margin-left: auto;
  margin-right: auto;
}

#header {
  margin: 5px;
  border: 0px solid $bordercolor;
  text-align: center;
  color:$pagetitlecolor;
}

Then just change the 1 that you see, to a 0 instead. Click preview and if it looks good, hit save!

I also saw a lot of  headers that weren't centered. If your header seems to big, upload it again but make sure you have the "Shrink to fit" box checked. That can make a BIG difference.  If you are using the "Simple" Template you can center your header by going up to DESIGN and then click on TEMPLATE DESIGNER. Click on ADVANCED in the right hand column. (This is also where you will find the ability to change font style, size and color)  Scroll all the way down until you find Add CSS and paste the following code in the box...

.header-outer {
margin-left:20px;
}

Adjust the number as needed to center your header. This code might also work in some of the other templates so give it a try!!

I hope these little tips will help any one who needs them. For TONS more info on Blogger and how to make a good blog look even better, visit BuildingBeautifulBlogs.com to find a book filled with all kinds of great blogging info!!!